A tablet is the most widely used dosage form among pharmaceutical solid agents from the viewpoints of properties such as medication taking, transportability, and preservation. Medicines are incorporated into tablets in various shapes and sizes. Among them, spherical granules having a spherical form and narrow particle size distribution as represented by film-coated granules cannot be tableted by themselves due to their low compactibility. It is also not desirable to cause deformation in granules by pressure during tableting. For the above reasons, spherical granules are mixed with other additives upon tableting.
However, even when such spherical granules are mixed with other powder substances, separation and segregation occur during transfer from a mixer to a hopper, from a hopper to a tableting machine, and within a tableting machine; therefore, it is difficult to obtain a tablet having a uniform content.
There is a case in which crystalline cellulose which is superior in compression compactibility is used as an additive (for example, patent documents 1 and 2, and non-patent document 1). Also, a technology for coating film-coated granules with a fibrous excipient by an oily substance to prevent damage to a film of the granules during tableting is disclosed (patent document 3). Further, a technology directed to obtain a bitterness-masked, orally-disintegrating tablet as a granule-containing tablet having film-coated granules is disclosed (patent document 4). Furthermore, a technology directed to obtain a granule-containing tablet which maintains zero-order release control after the granule-containing tablet is made from film-coated granules having a controlled release of an active ingredient is disclosed (patent document 5).    Patent Document 1: JP 3-258730 A    Patent Document 2: International Publication WO2005/084636 Pamphlet    Patent Document 3: JP 4-20889 B    Patent Document 4: International Publication WO2006/074185 Pamphlet    Patent Document 5: International Publication WO2005/041934 Pamphlet    Non-Patent Document 1: T. E. Beckert, K. Lehmann, P. C. Schmidt, Compression of enteric-coated pellets to disintegrating tablets, Int. J. Pharm., 1996, vol. 143, p. 13-23